Something to Love - a response

This post has been adapted from a response I made to Inua Ellams’ thought provoking blog post, Something to Love. The basic premise was that someone had suggested that happiness requires 3 things: Something to do, Something to love AND Something to hope for. Readers were invited to give their responses to what these things might be, here are mine:

I think the first question we have to ask is What is happiness? Otherwise we may well find that we are leaning our ladder against the wrong wall. Today’s definition of happiness is “pleasurable satisfaction”, however Aristotle, Moses, Jesus and other wise ancients held to a different definition: “Happiness is a life of wisdom, virtue and character”*.  Once we’ve established that, only then can we approach the three rungs, or any for that matter, that are suggested… I’ll try not to babble or be weird but here’s what I think:

Something to do:
Admit the ultimate nature of the question. That is to say, the answers we give must transcend vocation (what we do for a living or enjoyment etc). Doing ’something’ is not in and of itself a virtue, it depends on what exactly your doing. So I think we have to admit that doing ’stuff’ however honourable, is not where it’s at. We are finite and limited, even on our best day. In any case, as Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet wrote, “all the glory fades, and the flower falls…” Any wealth cannot be taken with us ultimately.  All doing then, should flow out of the right application of this insight.

Something to love:
Human beings are designed to worship. We choose to love/worship different things in different ways, but this is self -evident. I would argue  that what we really mean though is a someone, and not something. For example, we may say we love our jobs, or vocations, our travel and our lifestyle, but most would probably concede that the people in their lives are loved and valued more. I heard someone say that it was interesting that according to phone records during the 9/11 attacks, none of the passengers, in the face of imminent death picked up the phone, to say “by the way, I really hate you!” to any enemies. Rather they wanted to communicate their love. When all the dust settles we love our loved one’s more than these things.  The reason we love them is because they have intrinsic worth, (because they are made in the image of God - though I wont argue the merits here). The point is, it seems there is a special place in our hearts reserved for people. We cannot take that lightly, it reveals a part of us wired to love personality - that which is endowed with personhood.  Yet we know there are many people who love their families or pets who are not happy. So whilst love for people hints toward the correct direction of love it is only part or a hint toward any solution.

We find that what Jesus taught on this issue of love is consistent with what our own intuitions, and furnishes us with a holistic picture, where things are put into perspective: Quoting from the Jewish old testament he says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt 22:37-39).

Now this concept of God being someone to love might sound far away and impersonal if Jesus had stopped at just imparting wisdom as a wise teacher. Only he didn’t stop there, he claimed that he was God! He claimed that He was the ’someone to love’; that He had not only come to demonstrate a flawless life of wisdom, virtue and character, but that He would demonstrate the substance of His love for all people who believe in Him, by dying in place of those who had lives littered with mistakes, errors, vices (you and me). That is, a life that fits the classic definition of happiness is lived out and dies so that the (spiritually) ‘unhappy’/unfulfilled, so to speak, can enter into the same kind of abundant life. Jesus rose again on the 3rd day; let me reiterate that: He conquered death, the thing that is perhaps the greatest cause of unhappiness in the human experience. He defeated it and invites others to share in the newness.

It’s already been observed that “ours beliefs should fuel our work”, and so it is with Jesus, who unique in human history had the belief that he could save humankind from themselves and that fueled his work on the Cross.

Something to hope for
“Everybody needs something to hope for”, or so goes the saying. This final rung, is similar to the first. We are all hoping in something. Some of us hope in money, financial status, ambition, academic standing, street hustle, fame, praise from men, sex, getting high, being comfortable and all manner of things. Again, these are self-evident, and are only useful here to underscore the point that it is possible to hope in vain, and attain no happiness whatsoever. We know this by our own experience and the celebrity culture that surrounds us in the west, where many despite their trappings are unhappy and unfulfilled. Hope then, is not in and of itself a virtue, it depends on what your hoping in.

I can testify that when the something to love becomes a Someone to love, who makes and keeps promises and instructs on what to do (having made me free indeed) - that all hope can and will be met, if not in this life then the next.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have ever lasting life.” - Jesus

 *The Lost Virtue of Happiness, Master Series of Christian Thought - J. P Moreland

March 21, 2008 | Filed Under reflections

 

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